Notes: Based on the manga by Suu Minazuki, currently running in Kadokawa Shoten's shonen magazine Shonen Ace.

Rating:

Heaven's Lost Property: The Angeloid of Clockwork

Synopsis

Hiyori Kazane is a young girl who attends the same school as Tomoki Sakurai, and in fact is very much in love with him. Up until a point, she was more than happy to nurture those feelings from afar, but eventually, she decided to join the New World Discovery Club.

Review

After two surprisingly well-made TV series, I was actually getting kind of excited about watching a hilariously perverted comedy, albeit in movie format. Great art and animation, a more elaborate and grandiose main story and maybe even more backstories about the characters, the angeloids in particular.

Not even five minutes in, I start realizing that Heaven's Lost Property: Angeloid of Clockwork takes place partially throughout the aforementioned two seasons, centered around the new arrival -- well, "new" as in they focus directly on her. She does show up at times in the second season, if only briefly. And in doing so, it recycles footage from said two seasons. A lot.

Yes, there is some new material centered around Hiyori spread among all the recap material too, but not nearly enough for the show to not feel like an unnecessary reprise, and the whole thing lasts for nearly 45 minutes. That's half the movie just to catch up to the beginning of the movie's main story, and the only thing they really establish with all this is that Hiyori likes Tomoki as much as she likes gardening, if not more. They even repeated the whole "school performance duel" segment in its entirety, and while I did appreciate averting my eyes from the hilarious trolling "My Tinglynips" again, it also meant I had to suffer through the tedium of the poor excuse for a classical music performance as well as the lame rock number Tomoki's club performed one more time.

And then you'll realize that the movie's art and animation is only as good as the TV series'. I liked the art and animation of the series, but much like a certain Inuyasha movie, TV series animation quality should not be sufficient for a movie.

It's a shame they do all this too, because I don't even dislike the new character. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think Hiyori is a real sweetheart. I have to wonder why she's so attracted to the diminiutive little pervert, but if I was THAT bothered about it, I would probably never have made it through the first season anyway, so there's that. Then again, she's also the only girl who actually confesses during the show (Sohara's too much of a tsundere, Ikaros is still figuring things out, and the others have only barely started on the road to the harem), so it's all going to depend on what happens when she eventually has her angeloid awakening.

I've often asked myself what I really wanted out of this movie while watching it. In a sense, the movie is more like a double episode, both in plot and in execution. Is there any difference between the fight featured in this movie compared to the ones you get in the two seasons of the TV series? What was I supposed to learn by watching this movie? It all feels a bit redundant, if nice. Like a big load of fanservice that should have had better animation than this. Or a better story, at least, and not just this "new girl -> comedy misunderstandings -> eventual angeloid fight" progression. It's even based on manga material as far as my research can tell, though with some alterations at that. (Some pretty major ones too.)

With the third season in the planning stages, I can only try to imagine how the big event in this movie will influence that. That's the one saving grace in what otherwise feels like a really unnecessary movie. Really, it could have been better served as an extra OAV at he end of the second season instead, because not only would that have made all the footage reprisals redundant, but the rest of the plot could then easily fit into a single episode -- maybe two, if the show felt like elaborating a little. As it stands, this is all I can really offer this movie.

(Kind of inconsequential, and a bit disappointingly by-the-numbers as Heaven's Lost Property stories go. It's not utterly terrible, so if you're in it for the fanservice, Tomoki antics or the token angeloid battle, add one or two stars at your leisure.) — Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: The movie is easily as perverted as the TV series, even within the new material. Most of the abuse and violence is recycled from the TV series, though I guess it's technically still there.